The Importance of Words
by terreisa
Summary: The words written on Emma's arm are supposed to be the last thing her soul mate would ever say to her. She just didn't know what would happen to her, or them, that could cause those words to fall from their mouth. A Captain Swan AU.
1. Chapter 1

**This story was inspired by two prompts on Tumblr, one where your soul mate's last words are on your skin and one where person A calls person B as they're dying. Written because I apparently enjoy torturing myself and originally posted on Tumblr.**

**The characters belong to Kitsis and Horowitz, I just take them out to play.**

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Emma had met plenty of people in her life that didn't have anything written across their forearm. She had even met a few people who did. It wasn't that she didn't believe in soul mates, spending any time with her best friend and her husband had proven that such a thing did exist. She just didn't know what would happen to her or to her soul mate that would cause them to say the words imprinted on the pale skin of her inner arm.

"We're having pasta."

The simplicity and banality of it had kept her awake when she had finally found out what the words meant. It had been one of the older girls in a group home that told her. The words were the last thing a person's soul mate would ever say to them. She had been eleven and it had been weeks before the nightmares had stopped.

Bouncing from foster home to foster home Emma had encountered a great many people. Most of them had untouched skin and she envied them as much as they envied her. The few she had come across with words on their arms had some sentimental statement etched across it. More often than not it was just three words, three simple words that held all the meaning in the world, 'I love you'.

Emma had gone back and forth between loving and hating the words on her arm. She had imagined a million and one scenarios in which her soul mate said those words and then she had imagined a million and one more. In the light of day she knew she was just setting herself up for disappointment, she had learned at an early age not to dwell on fantasies. In the middle of the night, however, her thoughts spun from one dream to another and she had given up trying to stop them.

When Neal came into her life she had thought he was it. She had found a happiness with him that she didn't think had been possible for an unwanted girl such as herself. It wasn't until she was sitting on a bunk in a jail cell looking down at the pregnancy test in her right hand and the words on her left arm that she let the heartbreak wash over her. Neal's last words to her had nothing to do with pasta and then he had abandoned her. Emma was pretty sure that soul mates wouldn't do that.

It had taken ten years for her to open her heart up to someone new. Despite being her superior officer Graham had a gentle persuasiveness that Emma had found hard to resist. He was also great with her son, a quality that was essential if anyone wanted a chance with her. Things had been good until a congenital heart defect that had gone undetected had him collapsing in her arms. His last words to her had been ones of thanks, for what she wasn't entirely sure but, despite her grief, he wasn't the one.

Walsh had come into her life a few years later. He was fun and cared about Henry and she enjoyed being with him but it hadn't felt quite right. When he proposed she had been surprised, not because he wanted to marry her but because she realized that she didn't want to marry him. His parting words were a simple goodbye, barely worth remembering.

It was only a few weeks later that she met Killian. She had accepted a position in a sheriff's office in a small town in Maine to get out of New York. Henry thought she was running from her problems and he was right, but she stuck to the story that she wanted to give him a better life than one in the city. Killian had been locked up in one of the station's two cells when she had walked in to the office on her first day.

From the minute he had opened his mouth Emma had to fight the urge to punch him in the face. It was a shame that she was even willing to bruise the handsome mug staring out at her from between the bars of his cell. Luckily the sheriff walked in before she could do more than pass him a water bottle. David had warned Killian try and stay on his best behavior for more than a few hours before unlocking the cell door and letting him loose on society. Bright blue eyes passed over her before he stated he didn't make promises he couldn't keep. With a slight bow at the two of them he had turned and leisurely sauntered out of the office.

Killian Jones snuck into her life, that was the only way she could explain it. He had the uncanny ability to read her like an open book and gave her exactly what she needed. Whether it was time, or space, or a hot chocolate with cinnamon, he always knew. Even Henry's reservations melted away when Killian treated him like a person instead of just another kid. It wasn't his patience or tenacity that won her heart, it was his unwavering faith in her and in them.

It had been five years since she moved to Storybrooke and four since she had been with Killian. They were happy, all of them. If she stayed up late some nights running her hand across her arm it didn't matter because Killian would eventually reach over and still her movements, pulling her into his arms. He only had two words that ran across the inside of his right wrist, words that never seemed to keep him up at night or make his brow furrow as he tried to puzzle out their meaning. 'Love ya' was such a simple phrase.

Emma hadn't seen the knife. It was dark in the parking lot next to The Rabbit Hole and she had stupidly thought it was just another drunk she would be taking to the station to sleep off his drinks. The guy had slashed at her twice before taking off running. She had only felt the gash on her hand and signaled for David to get the guy. It wasn't until she tried to walk to the cruiser for the first aid kit that she realized something was very wrong.

Her left leg gave out and she nearly collapsed to the ground but caught herself on the cruiser. Lights were spinning in her vision and her head seemed to have been filled with helium. Standing up slowly she limped around to the side of the car that was bathed in the light of the streetlamp. She nearly collapsed again when she looked down at her leg.

There was a six inch hole in her pants that was the least of her problems. The blood soaking into the denim from the wound on her leg was a more pressing issue. Emma couldn't feel that injury and that's what scared her the most. She had been in enough emergency rooms to know that a wound that you couldn't feel was a serious one.

The music pouring out of The Rabbit Hole's door was too loud to yell over and for once no one was out taking a smoke break. David was nowhere to be seen and Emma's time was running out. She shakily lowered herself to the pavement and leaned back onto the side of the cruiser. Her leather jacket, while it made her look good, offered no hope of staunching the blood seeping from her wound. She shrugged it off anyway and tried to fashion a tourniquet, anything to buy her enough time to get help. After she tightly tied it around her upper thigh she pressed her hand to her wound to slow the flow of blood.

Blackness was creeping in at the edge of her vision, blurring the night sky. She felt sleepy, like all she needed was a good nap and she'd wake up in her bed and this would just be another nightmare. Killian would be there smirking as he toed off his boots to climb in beside her.

Emma loved when that happened. She loved when he surprised her at work with lunch or when he took Henry out sailing for no reason. She loved the random texts she got through the day and the hastily scrawled notes left under the windshield wiper of her car. She loved when they fought over stupid things and she really loved when they made up afterwards. She loved him with everything she had and even with everything she didn't.

Her fingers, once sure and strong, fumbled as she pulled her phone out of her pocket. They wouldn't work properly as she unlocked the screen and thumbed through her contacts until she got to the picture of Killian. After a moment's hesitation she made the call. She owed him that much at least.

"Why, Swan," Killian's voice poured through the phone like honey. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your call?"

Emma bit back a sob as she pressed harder on her wound. The shadows on the periphery jumped back and she was thankful that the cobwebs were temporarily swept from her mind.

"Oh, you know," she tried to sound casual, "just trying to pass the time. It's been a slow night."

"Hmmm. I know how you hate those. Any chance of slipping out early? I know the good Sheriff is more than capable of handling things by himself."

She could hear pots and pans rattling in the background. Closing her eyes she could see Killian moving around their kitchen, phone cradled between his shoulder and his ear, cooking dinner for him and Henry with enough left over for when she got off. A tear slid down her cheek but her limbs felt too heavy to brush it away. Plus both her hands were occupied with pressing onto the things that were keeping her alive.

"Emma, love," Killian's concerned voice cut through her thoughts. "Are you there?"

"I'm here. Just lost in my thoughts, I guess."

"If you have time for that then there's definitely no reason David can't let you come home now. Dinner's almost ready and Henry's actually finished his homework, or so he says. We could make a night of it."

Emma smiled gently and opened her eyes. Looking up at the stars she breathed in a quiet, but shaky, breath.

"I might just do that. What's on the menu?"

"My specialty, straight from the jar to our table. Spaghetti a la Killian."

"What?"

Emma's hand slid off her leg and she nearly dropped the phone.

"We're having pasta."

She had to laugh. Of all the scenarios she had dreamed up this took the cake. The blackness had come back, her head felt heavy, and it was hard to keep the phone to her ear. But she couldn't go without saying it, without giving him that.

"Sounds perfect. I'll see what I can do," she let her head fall back on the car door, "and Killian?"

He hummed in response, no words just a sound. The tears were falling freely now and she just wanted it to be over. It hurt too much, being the one to have absolute surety and having to say goodbye.

"Love ya."

The phone slipped out of her hand and clattered to the ground. The call was still connected when David found her only minutes later, Killian's tinny voice yelling out her name.


	2. Chapter 2

**I had someone leave a review wondering about Killian's perspective and tbh that's my weakness. So here it is and as a warning this breaks my heart a little bit more than the first chapter did. I'm so, so sorry.**

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Killian had always been told that he wore his heart on his sleeve. His mother had told him lovingly as she had gently brushed the hair from his forehead and wiped the tears from his eyes when Liam had pushed him down one too many times. His father had told him harshly with an elbow to the ribs as they stood over his mother's grave, a month after she had passed. Liam had told him jokingly, time and again, as he fawned over a shop girl back home while they were out at sea. He couldn't help it. Not when two simple, yet powerful, words adorned his wrist for the world to see. 'Love ya' would never be taken lightly by him.

It had been years before he met another person with words but he had known what they meant since he had been old enough to ask about them. His mother had weaved it into a story, one where a beautiful princess and her dashing hero had saved each other from the jaws of death time and again only to whisper the words to each other as they lay in their bed, old and ready for a new adventure. Liam had told him the harsher truths, when Killian had been a bit older and their mother was no longer there to soften the blows. He had already known that not everyone had words, his entire family's unadorned wrists attested to that, but Liam had pushed it further by telling him that just because he had words didn't mean he'd grow old with his person. It just meant that when he did learn that they were the one it would be far too late.

Milah had come into his life when his life had been torn asunder. It had only been months since the skirmish that had killed Liam, the last of his family and his best friend. Killian hadn't stepped foot on a ship in months, having been dishonorably discharged, and had been making his nightly rounds to the seedier pubs in London. She had been bored and disappointed in her marriage, making her own rounds as she sought something more exciting, more fulfilling. They had only needed one round of shots to know they had found what it was they were seeking.

There were no words on Milah's arm but Killian had loved deeply her all the same. Her death had come suddenly, a lapse in attention that had her stepping out in the street at the wrong moment. Milah's last words to him had been "I love you", said carelessly over the phone an hour before she was killed. He spent the next ten years convincing himself that the words on his wrist were what she had meant to say.

Meeting Emma Swan had been a lucky coincidence. He'd had a bad night, the anniversary of Liam's death always was, and had woken locked in a cell in the Sheriff's office of the small Maine town he'd come to call home. What he hadn't been prepared for was that the person who had woken him was easily the most beautiful and most intriguing person he'd ever met. Killian almost couldn't help the innuendos and bon mots that had fallen out of his mouth, not when he received the barest hint of a smile in return. As he had done a ridiculous bow before leaving the station he vowed to bring a smile to Emma's face as often as possible.

It had been easy, falling in love with Emma, almost too easy. He would have questioned it more if he hadn't seen glimpses of her love for him in her startling green eyes. A year had passed before she told him, a year of dinners, sailing, bonding with Henry, of hurts and disagreements, of pushing away only to fall back together again. When she told him she made sure to emphasize the 'you'. He hadn't told her how much Milah's last words had haunted him but she had known all the same. After all, she knew how important a simple phrase could be.

"Love ya."

The phrase had echoed in his head. It was all he could hear, even over his own shouts into the phone, water boiling over and sauce splattered on the floor where he had dropped the spoon. He had been vaguely aware of Henry tearing into the room, panicked and confused but somehow knowing what had happened. When David had come on the line Killian had collapsed to the ground, losing all sense of what was around him. When he had come back to himself Henry was wrapped tightly in his arms, both of them sobbing into the other's shoulders.

For days after he had wondered what would have happened if he had ordered pizza instead or grilled hamburgers or even roasted a whole fucking pig. Anything that would have kept him from uttering the words she had been so afraid of hearing. She had done it for him, always emphasized the 'you' when she said I love you and his careless mistake had cost her her life. Killian knew he'd never eat pasta again.

He barely made it through the funeral. The day couldn't have been more perfect, the sun had been shining, the sky a crystalline clear cerulean blue with not a cloud in sight. It was a day that Emma would have loved, where she would have begged him to take her and Henry out on his boat. Instead he had been standing by her grave, trying to hold himself together because her son needed him to. For the most part he did, but he couldn't bring himself to shovel dirt on her coffin. Henry joined him in the car for that.

A week later Killian found himself in a lawyer's office where Emma's will was being executed. There wasn't much, but of what there was Killian became the sole beneficiary with the exception of a few things for David and his wife. He was also named as Henry's legal guardian, a superfluous title when he had already been in the process of adopting him. It was a surprise he had been planning on sharing with Emma when he proposed.

The last item given to him was a sealed letter, addressed to him in Emma's messy scrawl. He didn't open it, not with David and his wife watching and definitely not with the lawyer breathing down his neck. When he returned to the quiet apartment he tossed the letter onto the coffee table losing it in a sea of unopened cards and missives reaching out to him in his time of grief. Killian could barely go two minutes without being on the verge of a breakdown and reading whatever it was that Emma had written would push him over the edge.

Time passed, the raw jagged pain slowly healed leaving behind a constant ache, as though he'd been run through with a sword that had only just been removed. Henry no longer skipped days of school to lock himself in his room and lock away the pain. Killian stopped drowning himself in rum at night because he was unable to sleep in the large, empty bed alone otherwise. Together they picked up the pieces and slowly moved forward but never quite moving on.

"Hey, what's this?"

"Hmm?" Killian hummed, half turning towards where Henry was standing in the living room. "What's what?"

"This letter," Henry hesitated, causing Killian to finally look over at him. Henry had a handful of envelopes in one hand and only one in the other. He swallowed hard, "It's Mom's writing."

Killian had forgotten about the letter. He had become very good at pushing the painful things aside to focus on providing stability for Henry. The coffee table littered with unopened envelopes had remained untouched. It was only with the approach of summer that Killian had suggested to Henry that they start cleaning up the things they had left neglected. He had taken on the kitchen, leaving Henry to the living room.

"When did she write this?" Henry asked accusingly, the anger at his mother's death lashing out. "When, Killian?"

"I'm not entirely sure, lad," Killian said placatingly. He slowly approached Henry, surprised to see him shaking. "I received it when they read your mother's will. I… I wasn't ready to read it then."

Henry deflated, "And now?"

"I fear I'll never be ready to read it but with you here I just might manage."

Killian took the letter with numb fingers. As he tore open the envelope he sat down on the lumpy green couch he had bugged Emma to replace when he moved in with her and Henry. She had wanted to keep it for sentimental reasons he couldn't fathom at the time, now he understood far too well. Henry sat beside him as he pulled out the sheets of paper covered in her inelegant handwriting.

_Killian,_

_I don't even know why I'm writing this, except you're doing what you need to do and I'm here thinking about what I should be doing. Actually, more like what I shouldn't be doing._

_I shouldn't be hiding from you as much as I do. I shouldn't push you away when I need you the most and I shouldn't let you do the same to me. I definitely shouldn't be thinking about that weekend we spent in Boston when I'm supposed to be working but what's a girl supposed to do. Most of all I shouldn't hold myself back from what has been the best thing in my life, other than Henry of course._

_I don't care that we won't find out until the end that you're my ONE. I know that you are and I don't need some stupid words to tell me otherwise. I'm not going to say it to you, at least not to your face, who wants to take that big of a chance with fate, you know? So I'll say it here, where it's safe and nothing will happen to either of us._

_Love ya._

_Killian, I love ya so much I want to shout it from the rooftops and keep it all to myself at the same time. You came into my life and made me start living. Henry adores you and I've seen the adoption papers on your desk (I didn't mean to but come on, you can't send me into your office and just leave them sitting there like that. You think I can't recognize that paperwork on sight?) so I know you adore him to. With you our little family is complete and that's all I've ever wanted._

_I guess I'm really writing this because if something happens I want you to know that I felt this way. I can't see the future but I know with words like 'we're having pasta' the end won't be when we're old and warm in our bed like the stories your mom told. I need you to know that no matter what you are my happy ending, even if the ending comes before we're ready for it._

_I never want to say it but know I will mean it with my last breath._

_Love ya._

_Emma_

A drop of water fell onto the page, causing the ink to run, and it took a moment for Killian to realize that it was one of his tears. Carefully blotting the page he passed the letter to Henry, who had been reading over his shoulder. As he dropped his head onto the back of the couch he let the tears course silently down his cheeks.

The letter had been dated a little over a year before, on the anniversary of Liam's death and of their first meeting. He had still kept up his habit of drinking too much on that day but instead of finding himself locked up in a cell for the night he ended up in her arms, her soft voice chasing away his pain. She wasn't there for him when the day had come this year but he'd had Henry to keep him grounded and out of the deep end of a bottle.

"She really loved you, you know," Henry said quietly by his side. "I think I knew before she did. She never stopped complaining about you."

Killian huffed out a laugh, a sad, broken thing but pure none the less. Emma had fought against falling for him tooth and nail it seemed, until one day she hadn't.

"I love your mother more than words can say and I miss her beyond comprehension," Killian spoke to the ceiling, knowing that Henry would understand that he couldn't say it otherwise.

"I miss her too," Henry sighed and tipped his own head back. "I think we should go tell her. We haven't been since the funeral."

Killian turned his head to look at Henry, silently regarding the teenager at his side. Henry wasn't his son by blood but sometimes it felt like he was. Times where his own thoughts came spilling out of the young man's mouth.

"I believe we should. Let's finish cleaning up and then we'll go," Killian agreed as he sat up. "We'll even stop by and pick up some flowers for her."

"Roses, she always loved when you brought her roses," Henry said with a small smile.

"Then roses we shall get."

Henry's smile widened as he sat up and reached for the envelopes he'd had in his grasp earlier. Killian watched as he began sorting through them. He may have lost Emma but he still had a piece of her with him. It was enough to keep on living without her.


End file.
